Waking up to an Acorn Fever scare

Yesterday morning dawned cloudy, breezy, and suspiciously cool. Not just our run-of-the-mill coastal Southern California "marine layer" clouds, either. These clouds had some heft. I checked the calendar: August 7. A chill rose on the back of my neck. Acorn Fever. We have never had a breakout of Acorn Fever this early. The weather records show that we have had occurrences in August, but always late August, with enough proximity to September to allow us to think it could happen any day now.

But Aug. 7 would catch us totally unprepared. I pulled on my sweatshirt – DON'T BE ALARMED, I have been wearing it indoors as we have kept the A/C running to combat our recent hot days – and went outside to sniff the wind. It was brisk, out of the southwest, coming off the ocean. It was unusually cool, and it almost, but not quite, had a bite. It's normally this bite that sets off the Fever, so I felt good about that. The low, thick clouds were also starting to burn off, another good sign, but above them were high streaks of cirrus with scattered cumulus below. It looked like a November sky. It would bear watching.

The cause of all of this was a low pressure system, "unseasonably strong," the Weather Bureau said. It was moving off the ocean into Central California. Trailing off it, into our territory, was a windy front that was prompting wind advisories in the mountains and deserts to our east. For us, it meant the arrival of this breeze I was sniffing, and temperatures 10 to 15 degrees lower than earlier in the week. The clouds, the actual temperature drop, and, most critically, the Saturday morning weather, would determine the actions of the populace.

It was this populace, the Southern California locals, to whom my reassuring DON'T BE ALARMED, above, was directed. These are Acorn Fever veterans, and they know the symptoms: a feeling of coziness, an urge to pull on sweat clothes, the need to build a fire, to rake leaves, to cook a pot of chili, to drive to the mountains with the car heater on to buy jugs of apple cider.. I assumed the duty, three decades ago, of Acorn Fever sentinel in our area, advising readers in my San Diego Union column of the conditions and what we might expect as each Fever season approached. People still approach me in supermarkets, saying, "What kind of Acorn Fever season do you think we will have this year?"

Well, this year, I am glad the harbinger happened on a Friday. Saturday being a holiday for most will naturally minimize the number of workers who might otherwise have gone to work in woolens and pashminas this morning. The number of homeowners pulling on Pendletons, swilling hot chocolate, raking nonexistent leaves (the Fever and what it does to humans can truly be pitiful to watch) and building roaring fires will be increased, of course, on a Saturday morning, but these victims will be closer to safety when the temperature hits 90 by noon. That is the typical Acorn Fever pattern in Southern California: a cool snap arriving overnight, a cloudy, breezy morning with temperatures in the 60s – or, in severe episodes, in the 50s – and then the temperature rebounding to 90 by noon, trapping victims far from home, spilling out of office buildings onto steamy sidewalks under a stark blue sky, leaving silent rescue crews to collect soggy piles of autumn outfits where humans, melted alive by the Fever had stood, nothing now but the DNA in their sweat to identify them.

Yesterday remained on the cool side – high 70s – through the afternoon. So far so good. We would know the rest at Saturday daybreak. When it arrived, I pulled on my sweater, got coffee, went outside and sat on the glider. There were clouds, but not heavy, more marine-layerish. No breeze. Just cool enough to feel bare skin draw up, but only slightly. I scanned the neighborhood for chimney smoke; there was none. Good sign. After 20 minutes I went back to the kitchen and waited for the urge to make waffles and chili. It didn't come. I think we dodged a bullet.